Regional Anniversary Days

25 January 2023

A little confused on payroll and Regional Anniversaries? We asked Smartly to break down the details.


Regional anniversary days can now be automatically added to your payroll – the same as other public holidays, like Christmas Day. In the Employee Details screen, you’ll find a field for you to choose your employee’s regional anniversary day. Once chosen, the relevant regional anniversary entitlements will be automatically added to that employee when the anniversary rolls around. Easy as! 


If you need to make a change to any of your employees in this screen, you will also need to either choose a region or select Not Specified as it is a mandatory field to save the page.


How do I know which regional anniversary my employee is entitled to?

In New Zealand, there are 12 regional anniversary days, but there are 16 regions across the country. To make sure your employees are assigned to the correct regional anniversary day, we’ve created a helpful table below:

Regional anniversary day Code Regions that celebrate the anniversary
Not Specified N/A None - you may use this if your employees are contractors and aren't entitled to statutory holidays
Auckland AKL Northland, Auckland, Waikato, Bay of Plenty, Gisborne, as well as some parts of the Manawatu-Wanganui and Hawke's Bay regions north of Owhango
Canterbury (South) CANS South Canterbury - the area of the Canterbury region bounded by the Rangitata River to the north and the Waitaki River to the south
Canterbury CAN The central east coastal area of the South Island
Chatham Islands CHAT The Chatham Islands Territory - the group of ten islands that lies 350km east of the South Island of New Zealand
Hawke's Bay HAW Hawke's Bay region south of Owhango
Marlborough MAR Marlborough
Nelson NEL Nelson and Tasman
Otago OTA Otago
Southland STH Southland
Taranaki TAR Taranaki
Wellington WEL Wellington, Wairarapa, Horowhenua, Manawatu and Tararua
Westland WES West Coast

For more information check out Employment NZ’s public holidays and anniversary dates, and Te Ara’s provincial anniversary days map.

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